The term storage management encompasses the technologies and processes organizations use to maximize or improve the performance of their data storage resources. It is a broad category that includes but is not limited to virtualization, replication, mirroring, security, compression, traffic analysis, process automation, storage provisioning, and related techniques. However, storage management also involves maintaining the operability of data storage resources by means such as maintaining the cabling of data storage components.
It should be noted that like reference numbers refer to like elements in the figures.